Demand for organically produced produce has exploded over the past 20 years, with total U.S. organic sales expected to reach $20 billion in the current decade. Organic production methods are not only believed to provide produce containing higher nutritional quality than non-organically grown produce, due at least in part to a lack of industrial pesticides, herbicides, and the like being transmitted to the food; but are also believed to keep soils and local environments healthier, for instance due to a lack of industrial chemicals in runoff water.
In general, in order to be sold as organic, produce must be certified as such by a recognized governing board. While specific certification processes vary, requirements to obtain organic certification generally involve avoidance of the utilization of industrially produced chemicals on either the land or the produce. For instance, certified organic products utilized to provide nitrogen to the soil have in the past been limited to those in which the nitrogen remains chemically bound, generally in the form of amino acids, polypeptides, or complete proteins. As provided, this bound nitrogen is unavailable to plants. In order to be of use, the bound nitrogen must be converted to an available form through natural decomposition following application, which takes time and provides highly variable amounts of nitrogen. Conventional produce production, in contrast, has utilized industrially produced synthetic nitrogen in the form of ammonia/ammonium that is more readily available to plants as compared to bound nitrogen of organic fertilizers and can be applied in precise amounts at critical stages of plant development. Thus, the yield and characteristics of conventionally produced produce (e.g., size, color, etc.), can often outpace that of organically produced produce. However, methods for forming synthetic nitrogen species typically include conversion processes utilizing as starting materials nonrenewable resources such as natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, or petroleum naphtha. Thus, utilization of synthetically-produced ammonia and/or ammonium is not conducive to organic production methods.
What are needed in the art are methods and systems for providing plant-available nitrogen to organic production methods. What are also needed in the art are environmentally friendly methods for producing ammonia and/or ammonium as may be used for any application, including organic farming methods.